


The Last One To The Party

by ScienceOfficerWillowRosenberg (left_handed_moth)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 22:58:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16942332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/left_handed_moth/pseuds/ScienceOfficerWillowRosenberg
Summary: Set just after 'Chosen.'"This was the first time Xander had thought about what he’d do after the apocalypse didn’t happen."





	The Last One To The Party

**Author's Note:**

> Written for daily prompt #001: 'I'm Out,' over on the Dreamwidth 100prompts community.

This was the first time Xander had thought about what he’d do after the apocalypse didn’t happen.  After the first couple times, he’d gotten pretty sure that it really wouldn’t, that Buffy would stop it.  Instead of thinking the world would end, he’d thought one or more of them, one for sure, wouldn’t make it.  Sometimes Willow, sometimes Buffy. Anya or Cordelia fewer times than he’d like to admit Usually it was him who died, though.   And even if everyone lived, he’d always thought ends of the world would keep coming. Things were normal, then Jesse died, and all of a sudden he was living in the world that killed Jesse, so he told himself he’d have to face it like a big boy.  It had been seven years of that.

And then they made the big plan, pretty much right before they all charged the high school.  No more Hellmouth, and a world full of slayers to mop up whatever was left. This time the world they were saving might end up being some other world than the one that killed Jesse.

So what was he going to do in that world?  He had a feeling, a pretty strong feeling, but it took not seeing Anya get on the bus with the rest of them to let him admit it: whatever he did, it wasn’t going to be this.

So when they’d settled in at a hotel with staff that didn’t ask a lot of questions, he went to Willow’s door and knocked.  It was entirely possible she was having oh-my-god-we-lived smoochies, and wasn’t going to surface for a while. Which, you know, good for her.

“Who’s there?” said Willow through the door.

“Yo.”

Willow opened the door.  No smoochies. No Kennedy, even.  “Lemme guess, Andrew’s bored you to tears by now.”

Xander made a noncommittal noise.  In fact, Andrew was withdrawn and very much not open to being comforted.  Xander almost felt guilty for being less upset than him.

“I just wanted to do the serious-talk thing.”

“Well, Kennedy’s stuff is occupying most of the seating here, so I can’t tell you to lie down on my couch.”

Xander smiled and sat on the edge of the bed.

He figured he’d just get right to it.  “Look, this whole thing where everyone in the studio audience gets to be a slayer?  I figure there’s a lot to do there. Are you guys...are you gonna need me?”

“Of course we will, Xander!” said Willow, a little too urgently.

“No, this isn’t an am-I-good-enough thing.  That guy’s not here right now. The guy who’s here right now, he’s just really tired, okay?  I’m just tired.”

“So, you're hoping the answer is…”  Willow trailed off.

“Hoping it's no, yeah.  This hero gig sucks. I'm just starting to get that.  With the hellmouth making things all hellmouthy, I thought, well, this is my chance to be a great big man and prove myself.”  He shook his head at that whole idea. “But even when I do something big, and I'm Nightwing instead of Robin, or whatever, I don't feel it.  Not really. Not permanently. Instead, the hurt and the fear and everything, they just add up. And if you guys don't need me to do all of that, like, if I can be your friend and that's enough, I wanna be a civilian again.”

Willow put a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.  You know you're the last one to the party here, though, right?”

Xander thought back to all the times one of the others, even Buffy, no, especially Buffy, had wanted out.

“Well now I'm just an asshole,” he said.

“Not the point.  I mean we get it.  And you don’t need permission.  Just don't bail, okay? Don't get a little woodshop in Nowheresville, Oregon and only call us on weekends or something.”

“I mean, it depends on how good their video rental store is.  Because if Nowheresville, Oregon has a big Hammer Horror collection, that might appeal.”

“Please don’t tell me Christopher Lee outranks me.”

“Nah.  Young Barbara Shelley,  _ maybe. _ ”

She punched him on the arm.

“Look,” he said.  Just...you get out too, okay?  Promise me that me and you--” his voice cracked, “--promise me we get to grow old together.”

Willow gripped his hand.  “I will if you will.”

He gripped it tighter.  “Kind of the plan here, with the whole civilian thing.”

“Good.”


End file.
